Fall Classic Final Game Draws 51M Viewers In the US, Canada and Japanese Markets.
The thrilling extra-inning contest that saw the Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 averaged a combined over 50 million spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB announced this represents the most-watched World Series finale since the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Viewership Breakdown
The Saturday epic game drew 27.33 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their digital services. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated program of the previous week.
It also stands as the top-rated Fall Classic matchup since the 2017 final game involving the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which averaged over 29 million. This marks a 16% improvement over the previous Game 7 between the Nationals and Astros, which drew 23.19 million.
In the Nielsen ratings, Game 6 ranked fourth, Game 4 was 7th, the fifth game was 8th, and Game 3 landed in 13th place.
Global Audience Figures
In Canada, the game drew 11.6 million viewers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in Canada after the 2010 edition Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game started at 9 p.m. local time, it attracted 12M. This followed last Friday’s sixth game – where Fall Classic Most Valuable Player Yamamoto allowed one run in six innings – averaged 13.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series matchup on a single network in the country.
Overall Averages and Trends
The entire seven-match World Series recorded 15.71 million viewers on the Fox network, a two percent rise from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the initial instance since 2015 and 2016 that the Fall Classic has seen viewership growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total US viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7 million and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 drew 8.09M viewers, an 8% rise over last year and Fox’s strongest postseason performance since the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was televised in over 200 nations and regions by 44 media partners in sixteen different tongues.
